The McCain campaign has a new robocall starring Rudy Giuliani that basically asserts Barack Obama is against the idea of putting anyone in prison:
Hi, this is Rudy Giuliani, and I'm calling for John McCain and the Republican National Committee because you need to know that Barack Obama opposes mandatory prison sentences for sex offenders, drug dealers, and murderers.
It's true, I read Obama's words myself. And recently, Congressional liberals introduced a bill to eliminate mandatory prison sentences for violent criminals -- trying to give liberal judges the power to decide whether criminals are sent to jail or set free. With priorities like these, we just can't trust the inexperience and judgment of Barack Obama and his liberal allies.
This isn't even remotely true, and it would take a herculean suspension of disbelief to think it was. Which is precisely the problem: it's so outlandish I can't imagine anyone actually believing it.
For the record, Obama was in support of giving judges discretion in issuing mandatory minimum sentences. This puts him in line with a 7-2 decision by the United States Supreme Court, hardly a bastion of leftist radicalism. Scalia and Roberts, two of McCain's favorite jurists, voted with the majority, with only Alito and Thomas dissenting. The decision was described as a return to judges' "traditional role in criminal sentencing."
--A. Serwer
